


Monster

by Kyoki777



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Mental Illness, Muggle AU, exteme au, mental health
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:35:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29811975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyoki777/pseuds/Kyoki777
Summary: True monsters come from within. A Tomione Idea.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Tom Riddle
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

That was it! She had had it! Enough was enough! The six year old girl was done with it all, done with her best friend always playing pranks and getting her in trouble. She tried to tell them that it was him, that it was all Tom’s fault, but they wouldn’t listen. 

‘Tom isn’t real Hermione,’ they had said, ‘you are old enough to accept responsibility.’ 

It was so annoying that she had to take the blame and was constantly being punished for it. It hadn’t been bad at first. She had enjoyed the pranks, like when Tom filled the sugar bowl with salt. That had been funny, watching her father spit out his coffee. Or when Tom had dyed the cat blue. They were harmless pranks, they didn’t hurt anyone, and were worth getting scolded over. 

Tom was becoming dangerous with his mischief now, and her parents were starting to worry. Seriously—placing a knife pointed end up under Mum's pillow, replacing the flour with rat poison. Someone could get hurt! 

Hermione closed the door to her room with a slam, glaring at the walls. “Tom!” she yelled, clenching her fists as she waited. “Tom, come out, I know you are there!” she stomped her foot impatiently. 

“You don’t have to scream, ‘Mione,” Tom said, his voice showing he was unimpressed. “Why are you upset?” 

The girl glared at him, honey eyes sparking with her fury. “I’m tired of your pranks!” she scolded him. “You could have hurt someone! What were you thinking? What if Dad made pancakes with the rat poison and we all ate them? What if Mum had laid down without looking?” 

“They don’t deserve you, so what if they get hurt?” 

Hermione stopped, glaring at the boy she had become friends with.

“What an awful thing to say!” 

“Well it’s true, I don’t care if they get hurt, they don’t matter.” 

“They matter to me!” Silence stretched between the two, the room seemed to get colder, but Hermione didn’t shy away, instead she stared down her friend. 

She wasn’t sure how long they stood there, staring at each other, whether it was minutes or hours, but she refused to give in. 

“You are so stubborn,” Tom finally said. “Fine, I’ll stop my pranks—on one condition” 

Hermione’s eyes narrowed as she looked at him. “What?”  
“There will be a time, when you are much older, when I will ask you to do something for me. You have to promise to do it.” 

The girl stared at him for a few moments, seeming to mull over his deal before she finally nodded, her riotous curls bouncing. “Alright. Deal.” 

“Swear on your parents lives.” 

She frowned, hesitating, “I swear on my parents' lives that I will do what you ask when I'm older.” 

Tom’s lips curled up into a smile, one that would cause fear to bubble in any adult, but Hermione just smiled back, used to him. “Good,” he said, “I'll see you around, Hermione,” he added before he left, disappearing into a wall just as he normally did. 

“See you later, Tom!” she said, expecting to see him in a few hours. She didn’t realize it would be years before she ever even heard the name Tom Riddle again.


	2. Chapter 2

Ron Weasley was a complete and total idiot. He was the cause of all her troubles as she stared at the empty bottle, listening to him tell her that she was addicted to the pills.  
He didn’t understand. He didn’t know what he had done. She had just refilled that prescription, and telling the doctor that her boyfriend flushed a controlled substance down the toilet because he was an idiot... well, she knew her doctor wouldn’t believe her. 

She would have to fight through this. 15 days was the maximum amount before insurance would allow for a refill... just 15 days. 

She could handle this. She was stronger than this. It was the second day after she started to see things. At first it was flashes of light. She told herself it was tricks of her eyes, her fear causing her to see things. 

She knew the truth of it though, even as she tried telling herself differently. 

This wasn’t the end, and it would only get worse. By the 5th day the light she had started to see had materialized into a man’s figure. Every time she saw him her heart would clench with fear. She knew soon she would be able to see his features, to hear his voice. 

The 6th day was when she kicked Ron out of her apartment, breaking up with him after he told her she was just having symptoms of withdrawal. He was wrong. There was a reason she was on that medication. It also didn’t help that every time she looked at him, his face was something sinister, distorted, and terrifying. 

She knew it was him, trying to isolate her. He did this in the past, and when she had hung in things got worse... Her best friend Draco had paid the price, had died. 

She wouldn’t allow that to happen to Ron. It was the 7th day, and she could see his features, his cold eyes always watching her, that charming smile on his face. She had fallen for it when she   
was a child, believing he was her friend, that he loved her. 

She knew better now. She tried her best to ignore him, even though he was always in her sight, always watching, just out of reach, as if there was barrier between them. 

She knew it was the drugs, still slightly in her system, though they were working their way out, and the more they went the stronger he got. 

It was on the 9th day that she woke up to the sound of his voice calling her name. She had sat up with a gasp, her eyes scanning the room but not finding him. At least until she laid back down and turned on her side, deciding she hadn’t really heard him. 

Instead she came face to face with him. She didn’t mean to, but she screamed. His hand reached out and covered her mouth. “Hush, Dove, there is no need for that. You know I won’t harm you,” he purred, slowly removing his hand from her mouth and running long fingers over her cheek, down her collar bone. “Oh how I’ve missed you, Dove.” 

He remained with her that night, his hands stroking her hair, his attempt at soothing her, though it only caused more terror. 

She knew he was right; he had never hurt her before, only those around her. It was her that he wanted, and he didn’t like to share. 

The days passed slowly, each one more torturous than the last. She secluded herself in her apartment, taking sick leave so that she wouldn’t give him the chance to harm anyone. 

She wouldn’t allow him to kill anyone like he had Draco. Even now, she could picture her childhood friend, his face distorted, eyes white and mouth wide and twisted, skin grey. 

No, she wouldn’t allow him to harm anyone like that again. Unfortunately, fate had other ideas. On the 14th day, she heard a knock on her door, banging really. Her eyes darted to it from where she sat, Tom sitting beside her. She had gotten used to his touch, knowing there was nothing she could do to stop him. She still did not speak to him, for she knew the second she did, she would never be rid of him. It had taken so much to get rid of him the first time. To give him back the power... she was certain that even the medication would not allow her to be rid of him. 

“’Mione!” she recognized the voice instantly and felt herself stiffen when Tom stopped his soft strokes through her curls. She dared to look over at him, watching the handsome face start to disappear, his features becoming twisted, more monstrous. 

She knew what it meant. He was angry. Angry that someone dared to come and interrupt them, that someone used an affectionate nickname. 

“Who is he, Dove?” Voldemort asked, for the monster before her was not Tom right now, he was the twisted version, the monster that lurked within. She didn’t answer, she stayed silent, hoping Harry would go away. 

“’Mione, I know you are in there!” Harry called through the door. “Ron told me you broke up. That you were angry at him about dumping out your medicine.” 

Still she remained quiet, Voldemort’s fingers were gripping onto her wrist, though they were not the soft flesh they had been earlier, but dry bones, a rough green skin pulled tight around them. 

“He knows you so well, Dove. Answer the door, let him inside.” 

“Hermione, please, answer the door!” Harry called. “I’m worried about you.”

She felt tears rolling down her face, wanting desperately to answer Harry, her best friend, the only one who knew her secret. But she couldn’t. She had to protect him. 

Several minutes went by, silence filling the room, and she felt herself relax. He must have given up. 

And then she heard it. The sound from her bedroom. Hermione’s eyes flashed towards the room, watching in horror as Harry came though. 

“Jesus, Hermione!” Harry said rushing to her, unaware of the monster that gripped tightly onto her, his red eyes boring into the boy who dared to come inside. Harry pulled her into his arms, and she couldn’t help but sob, knowing that Voldemort’s anger was rising. She could see it as he stood from where he had sat, towering over the two of them. She knew he would kill her friend. 

“No. Please,” she whispered, daring to talk to Voldemort for the first time, her eyes on his form as he paused, red eyes now on her. 

“Please what, Hermione?” Harry and the creature from her nightmares asked in unison. 

“Please don’t hurt him. Please, Tom, please.” 

His face turned into a twisted smile, “As you wish, Dove...” he said, “I won’t harm him...” 

There was a sinister undertone to his words, one that she did not like and couldn’t comprehend. Not until it was too late. 

The monster reached out his hand, his fingers gripping onto Harry’s shoulder. 

Instantly, Harry let her go, spinning around as his eyes widened in fear. She screamed when Harry collapsed, starting to seize. She cried as she tried to help her friend. 

“You promised. You promised,” she whimpered over and over as she tried to help her best friend through the seizure, making sure he did not bite his tongue. 

And just like that, it was over, Harry laid still, his eyes closed. She sobbed, holding onto her friend tightly. And then a miracle happened, he stirred, letting out a groan. “Hush, Hermione, I’m alright,” Harry said, “It’s alright, Dove.” Her body stiffened at the word. She looked down at her friend as his eyes opened, but instead of the green she loved, they were the color of Tom’s, dark blue.

“What did you call me?” she whispered, watching as he sat up, scooting backward in fear. 

“What I have always called you, ever since you were a child. I kept my promise. Your friend is alive, though trapped for the time being. You gave me the power to be reborn.” He stood up, approaching her before crouching down and tilting her chin up. “I tried long ago, before you blocked me out, with your friend Draco. He was too weak... Harry though... he is strong enough to carry me, he will be the way we will never be separated again.” 

It wasn’t Harrys face she was looking at anymore, nor his voice. She watched as Tom’s features replaced her best friend’s. 

“What about Harry?” she whispered.

Tom smirked at her, “He will live as I did for so many centuries, trying to find the one person who can free him. His soul mate.” 

Tom smiled at her “Don’t worry, Dove, I kept my promise. He is alive, unharmed, and now we can be together, forever.” 

Hermione watched in muted terror as he leaned forward, his lips, lips that should have been Harry’s, brushing against her. 

His words washed over her like cold water, chilling her to the bone. 

She knew the truth, there would be no escape.


	3. Chapter 3

Her life was a nightmare. Truly. One she could not wake up from. She told herself she had just one more day, just one more day of this hell, then she could get the pills, could get rid of the delusions in her head.  
Harry hadn’t really been there; Tom hadn’t really taken over his body. It was all a hallucination, all part of her schizophrenia. She chanted it in her head like a mantra, even as Tom wandered around her home, making tea for her, placing it in front of her. When she shivered, he wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, kissing the crown of her curls before he went to start cooking. 

She looked down at the cup on tea, trying to rationalize it. She had made it, but her mind was making up that it was Tom; it was really her in the kitchen, cooking dinner... 

Or maybe it was Harry, unaware that in her mind she saw the man who haunted her, who had haunted her since she was a child. 

The boy who would constantly get her into trouble, the boy who had killed her best friend at the time, twisting him into an unrecognizable form. 

She had been on antipsychotics ever since, the doctors stating she had childhood onset schizophrenia, that the trauma of her friend’s death only made things worse. 

When she had taken the pills, they hadn’t worked at first, not until she told him she didn’t want to see him anymore. It was then that the medication kicked in. Her mind remained numb the rest of the night, even as she felt Tom touch her, making her eat, guiding her to bed, pulling her under the covers. 

She could feel his hot breath on the back of her neck. Slowly she turned over, hoping to see Harry, but it was Tom, his blue eyes staring back at her. 

“You aren’t really real. You are nothing but my brain being confused, playing tricks on me because I stopped taking my medicine.” 

Tom chuckled, reaching out and stroking her face. “I’ve always been real, in a sense, trapped in a different dimension, one in which only someone very special could see me. I waited for centuries for that person. I sensed you, the minute you were born, it was like my soul pulled me towards you. I knew then that you were mine.” He smirked at her, “The only reason you stopped seeing me was because you asked me to leave. You clung to that medicine like it was your only hope for survival.” His fingers trailed down her cheek, tilting her chin up, “It’s why I had your idiotic boyfriend dump them. I was tired of waiting, tired of missing your company. It was your belief that I would come back that allowed me back into your life, your acknowledgement of me that allowed me to take the form of flesh again,” he smirked softly.

“You aren’t real...” she repeated again. 

Tom gripped her chin, almost painfully, his eyes flashing red. “Hermione, I need you to understand. You were never ill, merely special. You saw through the veil. You rescued me. Those pills will not get rid of me now or ever. I have assumed Harry’s life.” 

Hermione frowned deeply. “What?” she squeaked.

“To the world, there never was a Harry James Potter. He traded places with me; the world will have no record of him. Everyone will remember Tom Riddle instead.” Slowly he turned around, grabbing the picture on her nightstand and handing it to her. It was of herself and Harry on the beach, but it wasn’t Harry anymore, holding her closely and grinning into the camera. Instead it was Tom, a soft smile on his face as he held her close. 

She blinked at him, “Why?”

“Because, Hermione, you freed me, you needed me. I know you don’t understand, but in time you will. You are my soul mate, my other half. I would have found my way back one way or another. It’s time to accept the truth, Dove. I was never a figment of your imagination, a nightmare. I’m your dream,” he kissed her forehead gently. “And I’m here to stay.”


End file.
